MONTICELLO — The Recovery Center will begin accepting new patients as early as late Wednesday, ending a roughly five-week ban imposed by the state as it investigated the treatment

facility’s center’s procedures for dispensing medications and other issues.

A conference call Monday with officials from the state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse ended with OASAS agreeing to end the ban after the center hired someone to oversee medication dispensing, board Chairman Mark McCarthy said.

A monitor started work on Wednesday, and the Recovery Center will begin taking new admissions for alcohol and drug abuse treatment immediately after OASAS gives the OK, he said.

“That’s what we do: We help people,” McCarthy said. “And for us not to be able to was heartbreaking.”

During the investigation OASAS found no incidents involving missing medications, McCarthy said. But the agency uncovered “procedural issues” in the center’s dispensing process, he said.

“This was the thing that concerned them – why they didn’t want us to take any new admissions,” said McCarthy, noting that the Recovery Center just had its operating certificate renewed in October.

Since opening in 1985, the Recovery Center has been a major provider of inpatient and outpatient services to adults and youths in Sullivan County. It operates a 16-bed primary care unit, a 30-bed halfway house and a 24-hour crisis center, and treats over 1,000 people a year.

The ban alarmed those who refer clients to the facility. It also rattled employees, who began fearing layoffs if the ban continued.

During the investigation, local attorneys and the county’s probation department began referring people to inpatient programs in Orange County.

At least two days last week probation officers had to drive people needing immediate treatment to the Middletown Addiction Crisis Center, Sullivan County Probation Director Jeff Mulinelli said.

Driving a person there and returning to Sullivan took about two hours, he said.